“We weren’t always happy,” I tell Louise. “But we were happy enough until the accident. When I rode the train west, I went looking for something, but I didn’t see anything wonderful. I didn’t see anything better than what I already had. Home.” (p.217)

He stares at me, maybe he is looking for Ma. He won’t find her. I look like him, I stand like him, I walk across the kitchen floor with that long-legged walkof his. I can’t make myself over the way Ma did.

And yet, if I could look in the mirror and see her in my face,If I could somehow know that Ma and baby Franklin lived on in me . . .